Letters

I know that many Massachusetts residents are still confused about how to vote on Question 1. The entire VoteNo campaign is designed to confuse and scare the public. They have spent millions of your and my tax dollars on their campaign.

Money that could and should have been spent on ensuring there are enough nurses to take care of patients safely like you deserve.

We, as nurses, have been working for over 20 years to get a law like this passed so we can provide quality care to you and your loved ones and now we need your help.

As a bedside nurse, I have noticed throughout the years that patients are getting sicker and sicker while support staff gets thinner and thinner and nurses are expected to do more and more.

When asked for reduced assignments due to acuity so we can take care of our patients the way they deserve to give them the best outcomes, we are met with zero support and told to ‘do the best you can.’ Well, we always do the best we can but we could do so much better. We want to be able to show you the care and compassion you all deserve, but too often we leave work, without having a break, exhausted and feeling defeated because we were not able to give each and every one of you the care you so deserve.

Over 3,000 nurses graduate from Massachusetts each year. We have the nurses.

More nurses in the emergency room and more nurses on the floors means better workflow and lower wait times and less patients per nurse means better quality care. Please don’t be fooled by the opposition. Help us help you and #VoteYESon1

I am voting “Yes” on Question 1 because I listen to nurses. I believe in them, and I’ve made it my job to do so, having gone to work for the Mass. Nurses Association years ago.

I listened to a nurse who was holding a hand written sign at a protest in front of her hospital. It wasn’t about pay. It was about unsafe patient care. It said: “I can safely take care of four patients at a time. You are number seven.”

Arlington Advocate: I am voting “Yes” on Question 1 because I listen to nurses. I believe in them, and I’ve made it my job to do so, having gone to work for the Mass. Nurses Association years ago. I listened to a nurse who was holding a hand written sign at a protest in front of her hospital. It wasn’t about pay. It was about unsafe patient care. It said: “I can safely take care of four patients at a time. You are number seven.”

Arlington Advocate: As a potential patient (like all of us), I am very concerned about the cutbacks in nursing staffs in health care facilities as an “economy measure.” Curiously, there has been no attention to the growth in health care administrators salaries now reaching into the seven figures.

Arlington Advocate: There are many fearmongers stating emergency rooms will have to divert patients, community hospitals will close and nurses will not be able to make decisions regarding safe staffing if Question 1 passes. I have read their statements of how many years they have spent in nursing but when you read the fine print their nursing career is mostly administrative and not in direct care. Their priority is in the bottom line.